Allison Hurd's Blog, page 13

The Secret to Productivity

You know that story about the little boy who realizes the dam is leaking and manages to plug all the little holes until the townspeople can come help?

I feel a little like him this summer, except that he saved an entire town, while I haven’t even managed to finish a season of The Great British Baking Show, let alone save any towns, finish any books, or really make tremendous progress in any single element of my life. I’m trying like hell, but I only have ten fingers, two feet and just the one tongue, so the number of holes I can handle is limited.

Get your mind out of the gutter! Come on! NO NOT LIKE THAT.

I’ve found my best tactic for productivity is not to sit down. If I get home, do the things I need to do to continue my everyday life, and then something else. I have five projects I’m working on right now, which means that I get to spend maybe an evening a week doing each of the things, except one of them is my day job that has gone off the rails lately and it just eats whatever it wants, like a swarm of ants, or any goat. But, if I want to do any of them, I can’t sit down at first.

Okay class. Do we see where she went wrong?

That’s it. That’s the whole doctrine. Need to pay a bill? Stand at the counter and write it. Need to make a call? Swiffer while you do it. Need to Swiffer? Try making a call at the same time. Boom. You’re suddenly productive. You also will never know if Martha will recover from her eclair debacle, or do more than the bare minimum to plug the dam.

For me the story is like a fish tank that has hairline fractures. And instead of standing there valiantly, or scooping out the fish, emptying the tank and getting a better one, I’m relying on Scotch tape, my memory, and dumb luck.

PERFECT! Like new!

I got this!

Remember that the book giveaway is over this week! Sign up for a free signed hard copy of the beautifully designed book David Berg made to cover all the words I put onto virtual paper!

Lord Help The Sister

First of all, remember that there’s a giveaway for Feeding Frenzy you don’t want to miss. It’s ending soon (how is it already the end up August?!) so get on that.

Second of all, continue to be good, kind, and intolerant of intolerance. Act with compassion wherever you can safely and effectively use it. Be safe.

And third of all, let’s talk about when you’re at crackers with someone.

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You know you’ve been there. A dislike of a person so visceral, every action they make pisses you off. Hell, maybe even someone you do like. Traveling or other stressful situations can make even best friends turn on each other like drivers sharking parking spots at the Opening Day game.

Sisters are no different. In fact, it might actually get worse for them because your best friend might have a falling out with you. Your partner might call it quits. Your sibling you still have to see again on occasion, and the rest of the attendees at those events will make you be nice to each other or else.

Which leaves poor Lia and Summer in a sticky situation. They obviously care about each other, but they live together in less than ideal circumstances and they’re also co-workers. And they have roughly all the same friends. I think we should give them Nobel Peace Prizes for not murdering each other on the regular.

They have a few techniques they use to keep from strangling each other every time one of them engages crackers level annoyance though, beyond “Mom and Dad would kill me if I left her at a gas station.”

(That’s a good one though.)

Kindness

They say that the greatest indicator of people staying in relationships is how kind they are to each other. Do they forgive? Do they pick their battles? Do they share in things the other person cares about even if it doesn’t matter much to them? The same holds true for basically all people in every sort of relationship.

But seriously. Shut your trap.

Reminding yourself that the fucker chewing with their mouth open and retelling the same story you’ve heard no less than a million times is someone you like and that this story is important to them means nine times out of ten you don’t start a fight over the table manners.

 

Breaks

You have to get away. They try to take downtime periodically, especially after the busiest part of their year. They religiously plan time away from each other to break the threat of implosion by co-dependence.

Yes, like this, but the opposite.

Honesty

If there is a fight brewing, they try to say what it is that’s really bothering them rather than fixating on the last straw. There’s really not much to say about chewing with your mouth closed. Getting drunk and shouting about the other’s personality flaws though merits a discussion.

Also, some days you’re just in no mood for shit. When they are feeling vulnerable or irritable they say so, and the other knows to respect that or suffer the consequences. When the consequences come at the hand of your sibling who is well trained in pain compliance and magic, you tend not to flirt with that line very often.

There you have it. May this help you in any road trips you have planned with your sister, be it a sister given to you or of your selection!

The Orphan Maids: A Fable

As you know, today I was gonna discuss something else, but I can’t hit publish on it. There is so much hurt in my home country right now that pretending I’m thinking of anything else is…disingenuous, and does not honor the people I love. Instead, here’s a story.

Millie was an orphan who lived with her stepmother and stepsisters. She was smart and goodhearted. She was dutiful, hardworking, and very, very trapped. You see, she had no money, no living kin, no carriage to get away, and a family that wanted her to work constantly, for nothing. Everyone in the neighborhood knew that the stepmother worked Millie to the bone. Millie scrubbed floors and cooked and did laundry, and at night got maybe some stale bread and a bed among the ashes. Millie knew the neighbors knew, and said nothing.

She’d been friends with them in happier times. She’d ask her old friends “let me stay with you,” and maybe they would for a night. They’d put a cot in their kitchens and call it charity. But no one told the constables, because “it was a family matter,” or “they must have a reason,” or “it’s embarrassing.” And some had thought this was a great idea and had orphans of their own sleeping in the ash. Aside for some ungrateful orphans who got a home out of the bargain, really, everybody won.

When Millie was 21 the king decreed that orphan maids must be compensated and work only as often as any other laborer. Millie’s stepmother was livid, but the law’s the law. So, she gave Millie enough money that she could eat, stopped feeding, clothing and sheltering her, and made the whole of Millie’s day miserable, criticizing everything, sending food back, sometimes even hitting her. But she was free again and had a little money, so Millie took it. She and the other orphans set up a little community in the nearby woods. The sheriff didn’t recognize their community for political purposes, or infrastructure, but did make sure they got taxed. Because they were not technically on the king’s land anymore, very few laws applied, and many people angry that orphans were noticed by power would come shout during the night, or rob them during the day.

Eventually the stepmother died. Millie’s stepsisters prided themselves in how much more humane they were than their mother. They only spoke about their stepsister like she wasn’t there, worked her twelve hours a day, and made sure all their criticisms and rebukes implying their superiority had “please” and “thank you” attached.” Millie asked for her dowry, now that the last of the older generation was dead, and the girls laughed at the presumption. “The law only recognizes…citizens,” they reminded her gently. They did not give her the lump sum of her inheritance, or past payment for work she’d done for them, or more money now.

Millie was poor, cold, always on the verge of starvation, and bitter. And constantly people would ask why she didn’t leave, even as they silently refused her shelter or a job. They would ask why she was so angry. “At least you’re not getting hit like you used to,” they’d say, as if this was an accomplishment. “At least you get paid.” But what could Millie say? The law only recognized her while she was of benefit to the king’s subjects. If she no longer had work in the kingdom, or if she brought too much attention and with it the backlash of public opinion, she could make it so much worse for herself and everyone like her. The real benefit of being one of the king’s subjects was the right to be taken as an individual. Millie could not be that.

It wasn’t until the pitchforks and torches were outside the little community the orphans had built that Millie really got angry, though. Mad at the workers for another mandate from the king entitling orphan maids to higher wages and roads to their community, the king’s subjects gathered to make it clear that no law was enough to drive out the hate in their hearts. Millie and her friends hadn’t done this. In fact, they’d done everything asked of them with no complaint and very little confrontation, thinking that things were slowly getting better, and progress is a long game.

Nothing was good enough. So they fought back against the people who came to do God knows what, and ended up in the stockades for attacking people, though none of the instigators were similarly punished. And that was the sight Millie’s step-nephew saw on his fourth birthday. Millie looked at his wide, uncertain eyes and knew that now he, too, would grow in a den of contempt for people who wanted a chance at as good a life as anyone else. How could he not?

And the biggest question, even if things slowly got better, how many generations before the contempt was bred out, and how long would they punish Millie and her friends for it?

 

I’m Sorry Teacher, I Was Exploring Utopia

Is there anything more luxurious than reading outside? I’m not sure there is. Maybe reading outside without the knowledge that you’ll have to go back in and do work? Yeah. That is true hedonism right there.

Alas, that is not today.

Yep, today’s post is late because I was finishing Ada Palmer’s Seven Surrenders. If you’ve read it, you accept this as a valid excuse. If you haven’t…I can’t say “you should” because it’s an incredibly odd series, but if you’re in the market for a mind-bending exploration of the Enlightenment Era’s philosophy set 400 years in our future about miracles, serial killers, and the meaning of Utopia, may I suggest a lounge chair by the pool and several hours during which you shirk all responsibility?

I’m dealing with big issues in my world, too. Right now I’m wrestling with representation, populating a complete world without falling into tired stereotype, and what dinosaurs would do if they were alive now. I, too, am a bastion of philosophical thought. I think dinosaurs would like parks and stepping on cars. That is as much as I can confidently declare.

Look how happy he is!

I think we’re getting somewhere.

I’m a little under the halfway mark in Blood and Bone, and things are really heating up. I’m sorry for what I’m about to do to the girls but also taking sadistic joy in all this chaos. It’s like the way nerdier version of setting fires in your Sim City.

A 20th Century exploration of Hume’s philosophy.

There’s also a giveaway at Goodreads that you should enter! You’ll like it. This edition is completely wireless, never needs charges and has an incredibly real-seeming signature on it! Technology is amazing.

And in the meantime, I hope you all get time to do your equivalent of reading outside. Come back next week for a more serious conversation that explains my firm refusal to include certain events in my books. Or don’t, if you would rather stay out in the sunshine, I really don’t have any room for side-eye here!

Put On Your Birthday Suits!

I’m not sure I’ve figured out social media yet. Currently my strategy is just to throw everything at the wall and see what happens.

Incidentally, that’s also who I paint walls, much to the horror of my spouse. (Also, it is creepy to me how much this person who is not me looks like me. ANDROID! J’ACCUSE!)

I’m working on it.

It’s vastly confusing, and if you want to untangle it, you first need to learn another language. And I’m like “I already speak three languages! And learned l33t and legalese! Let’s consolidate, shall we?” And then a fellow millienial patted me on the shoulder, brought me a V8, and told me that it sounded like I was now ancient, so I should either drink this and attend water aerobics, or add some vodka to it and start doin’ some learning.

That is the story of how I started day drinking and reading things with words like “scalable traffic campaigns” and “journey and repel prospects” which so far I’m about 63% sure is not about how easy it is to descend a rock face.

Oh, that’s RAPPEL, with an AP. Now I’m like 87% sure this isn’t about cliffs.

Why do you care? You’re reading a blog for cryin’ out loud!

I hear you. You’re currently living in my head, after all. No need to shout. You care because I have some announcements and I think you’ll want to hear them. But you’re right, let me skip to the good stuff.

The other day on our Facebook page, I lifted an idea from a meme and attempted to describe commenters like I would write them. It was a lot of fun to do, and seemed to be something people enjoyed, which is great! I really have a good time seeing people interacting with things I make, even when they’re just a paragraph out of context.

But the exercise was more than that, of course. I’m glad people responded to it, but it’s also a wonderful warm up exercise for writing, and super helpful for another book I’m working on (sorry, I think you should know that I’m not fully monobibliogous. There are other books in my world I’d like you to see!) So, I hope some of you are prepared to make cameos in future works!

I’ll be doing this and similar challenges in the future, usually when I need inspiration or something to get my fingers typing again. You can psych yourself into thinking you need to be in a “mood” but that’s a lie. The mood is nice, but the important part is the commitment. And for followers of the page, I’ll draw you like I draw my French girls, which is to say very respectfully, and with words.

Second bit of news you might enjoy, while I slowly type away at [redacted crazy pants things happening] in Blood and Bone right now, it is a great time to get into the world! There’s a book giveaway starting July 31 on Goodreads for my birthday! Good luck to those who enter, and I hope to see you around!

Summer Time, Living’s Too Easy

Is it hot where you are? It’s hot where I am. It’s been crazy busy (yay summer plans!) so I’m afraid I don’t have much lined up to joke about with you today. Instead, here’s the first bit of Blood and Bone to help you cool off!

 

I’m in a pickle.  See, if I just keep going up this road, I get everything I most want right now: a hot meal and a hotter shower; a soft bed, and a safe place to sleep in it.  It would be so easy, and so nice after the last month we’ve had.  I can almost smell something warm and meaty cooking on the stove. My shoulders ache to feel the water pressure of the best shower on the planet.  Compared to the damp chill radiating up my woolen-socked feet and the slush all over the place even though it’s still November, it would be paradise.

However, in order to get it, I have to convince my sister that she needs to take her foot off the brake and drive like a human.

You can see my problem.

“You almost ready to leave this stop sign?” I ask gently after I watch the clock tick from half past seven to seven thirty-three.

“No, I think I need another minute,” Ophelia says, her voice wavering a bit.

My stomach growls.

“Lia, think how nice it will be to have hot food again.  Remember what soup tastes like?”

She pauses reluctantly before responding. “I do like soup.”

“And when was the last time we showered for real?”

She licks her lips and thinks.  “A week ago, maybe? But Summer. The shower is in a house, and the house has people who want me to remember things about them.”

I scrunch my toes inside my damp socks, trying not to seem frustrated.  She’s tired, I’m tired, and it’s not her fault at all that she’s nervous.

“Yeah, but we had a refresher course all the way here, yeah?” I say soothingly.  “And I promise I’ll sit next to you at dinner, and if I have to leave, I’ll make sure RJ is with you. You won’t have to be alone, and if you stumble, I’ll be right there.”

“Pinky swear?”

I solemnly extend my pinky, though it’s bright red from the cold I can’t seem to escape, and hook it around hers.  My sister sighs deeply, ever so slowly removing her foot from the brake.

And ever so slowly tapping the accelerator.

“A little faster, maybe?” I suggest, reaching the end of my rope.  “I’m worried we’ll slide back down the mountain at this rate.”

“Gotta be careful in the ice,” she says.  

I bite back a retort that I’m pretty sure our SUV can handle a little ice, and instead focus my ire on the weather.

“I can’t fucking believe it’s snowing. It does this to me on purpose you know.”

“What does?” she asks, temporarily distracted from her own thoughts.

“This state. It’s always doing things like this to me.”

“I highly doubt Connecticut called down snow just to spite you.”

“Oh, sure. Take its side,” I mutter, glad to see a faint smile on her lips and her toes angled more steeply on the pedal.

We near the final turn, and the traitorous foot leaves the pedal entirely.  I anxiously watch the road—this is a blind turn, and in Connecticut things like “speed limits” are seen more as low scores to be beaten than rules.

 

Brr! I can almost feel how much I hate winter even as I sit here sweating! Stay cool, stay safe, and we’ll be back soon with more updates!

Nothing says summer like a ferry!

No…Let me Sum Up

I know I haven’t made a post recently about book progress, and it’s because in terms of written words, it’s going painfully slowly. It’s like when someone comes to you with a question, and feels they have to explain the whole thing to you two different ways so that you know why they have this question, so you sit their nodding along because you know what they’re saying but not what they’re asking and wish they’d just spit it out but if you said that they’s get nervous and make more excuses. And then you’d just die there, standing on your feet, your skull nodding along like a gruesome bobblehead, no closer to answering their question.

I GET IT. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WHAT DO YOU NEED FROM ME?

I knew this would be the case when I sat down to write this book. It’s involving a lore I don’t know as well, and I refuse to use the readily available parts for my own end without understanding them in context. That way lies dishonesty, at best, and outrage, at worst. So, there’s been a lot of research, a lot of talking with people with specialties I don’t and will never possess. A lot of listening and recontextualizing. One large “back to the drawing board” moment that I am pleased to say didn’t set me as far back as I thought it might, and gave birth to a much more interesting, more coherent plotline.

In other words, a lot of yakkity-yak and very little clackety-clack. Which means that I’m still in the first third-ish of the story, in terms of word-count and progression.

But maybe you’d like to know about my research a little? I am sad to say I can’t tell you about the fascinating things I’ve learned this go-around yet because, well, I’m using them at present and you’ll just have to wait your turn. The overall method to my madness has been fairly consistent, however, and I think it helps me return characters that feel real and diverse without (I hope) too many stereotypes, and the use of mythologies that are both historical and yet completely of my own fabrication as well.

First, I pick a system I’d like to explore. Some I know more about than others, and try to sprinkle those throughout so that if I have to do major research, it’s not two or three books in a row (though this so far has always been a lie, and I will still spend at least 100 hours reading arcane texts). The reason for this is that I want to make sure I am honoring the culture that gave us these tales and not stepping too hard on anything “living.” I will draw from modern day events, but I don’t want to face off with things people steeped in a culture know to be true. I am only borrowing it, I should hand it back as I found it, you know?

Then I pick a monster that’s less common. Some of them are so built up that I find it hard to beat expectations for them. Vampires, for example, have a history. There are expected roles for them. Other authors play with these, of course, to varying degrees of success that somehow don’t correlate with their monetary viability but I digress. But some are a little less concrete in the public mind, and therefore are fun. I’ll go through lists of creatures, or re-read old tales until the thread of an idea spins into something. I keep the monster and research the shit out of it.

Usually the thread ties itself to a concept I really want to engage. These are popcorn reads, I know. I don’t want to be preachy, and it would ring false if I tried. But, for example, maybe I want to talk about the lie of women being cheerful around men they know see them as objects. Maybe I want to remind people how a culture that puts women on a pedestal does so by pile-driving men into the ground. Maybe I want to write about the beast of depression and the magic of affection. That’s what fairy tales are, after all; stories to explain the world, or give hope or warning. Sometimes they are fables, offering morality lessons. But always, they fictionalize a truth we’ve internalized, and so I continue this with mine.

I have an end goal for the series, and so the next step is picking a “Big Bad” that leads to the narrative I’m spinning. There is a progression to Summer and Lia’s path, and I have to show the highlights so that when their story “ends” you know the parts they look back on as pivotal.

With this, I create an outline and start writing. Any time I touch a cultural element, I research it. Any creature that gets added you can be sure I’ve spent dozens of hours considering, both as itself, and in the context of the world I’ve presented. Any myth followed I’ve read from as many sources and scholars as I can find. The point is not just to tell a fun story, but to tell one that resounds with the internalized truth of our rote stories. One that doesn’t re-imagine them, like The Lion King  and Hamlet , but that polishes a new angle.

In conclusion, teacher, this is why I haven’t finished my assignment.

 

Where the Wild Things Sip Champagne

I have gone to the land where trolls cook their dinners in the roads we traveled. Where witches rode brooms and could be controlled through the turning of a wheel. I have trodden HEL way, and faced the malevolence that protects or haunts its city.

The fjords of Norway were breathtaking. They were wild and desolate, coated in snow so pure it hurt to look at and shrouded in mist that modestly hid its own heights. The water ran turquoise through the craggy mountains, where only birds dared travel, claiming kingdoms and fishing rights. The trolls bathed in big waterfalls, and used the fresh, cold water from the small water chutes to clean their hands and refresh their throats. Avalanches cleared enough wood for them to collect for their fires, and the “troll pots” in the road could feed an entire army of that race.

Stockholm, Sweden was steeped in the traditions of its conquering founders, and the traditions that made them powerful. Transmogrified chairs, boats that conquered the oceans by prayer alone. Quaint recipes for how to prepare your broom for taking to the night sky with your sisters.

 

And Helsinki, Finland was a world of its own. A deep uneasiness filled us as we walked through the almost deserted town, the evening advanced but the sun that never set still lighting our way. Something knew we were there. Something jealous and awful, that breathed with the lap of the waves on its shore, and drank of the champagne that flowed in its streets–and perhaps it drank of other, more vital fluids, too. We found the people it sheltered, tucked in grottos and lush parks, with strength from their protector drawn through their bones, and smiles on their faces, knowing, as they must, that while most of the old ones sleep, theirs is watchful yet.

There they spin their stories into song and soothe the jealous wrath of their home with sweet music, strong as mountains and merry as bird flight.

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Truly the stories still live, and grow. The world changes, but it does not forget what it was when it was still a wild thing, before it tasted of sweet wine, and yielded some of its domain to man. It remembers and calls to the other wild things, waiting. Waiting.

Even Monsters Hate M-80s

Did you know that fireworks started as weapons? You likely did. But maybe you didn’t know that they are also weapons against several monsters!

Most notable of course is the Chinese Nian , the half-lion, half-bull, who like many of us does not enjoy loud noises or sudden lights. He’s not alone, of course. When Summer and Lia watch fireworks, they like to set up a blanket, pop something cold, eat fried chicken and imagine what sorts of monsters are being banished or shooed.

The Nian, right after hearing the 66th M-80 of the day go off at 10 am.

May you enjoy a safe and prosperous holiday, no matter how you celebrate!

Bat out of Murgatroyd & Other Cusses

So, are you a potty mouth or a fudger?

I personally think all words have a time and a place. And sometimes for my own mouth that time is never and that place is somewhere I’m not, but those words are very few, in the grand scheme.

The rest? I frickin’ love ’em.

I am working on a theory that old curse words sound modern again when combined.

For example:

“Aw nuts!” Timmy exclaimed, throwing his straw hat on the ground.

“Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat you gave me a fright!” Iggy yelled, turning to see his favorite cow Bessie behind him.

“Jehoshaphat’s nuts!” Lia cursed, dancing around and holding her stubbed toe.

See? Boom. 2017 seditious slang.

Here is a list of “vintage curses” I stole borrowed from Huffington Post. Try to make your own new curses!

1) “Frazzlin, dadgummit,” said Theresa Reed.

2) “Heavens to Betsy!” said Marti Gilley.

3) “Jumpin’ Jahosafat!!!” said Vicky Merling Points.

4) “Yikes and I still say it,” said Jackie Lamothe.

5) “Gadzooks!” said Jim Britt.

6) “Holy cow,” said Michelle Ethridge.

7) “Shoot or sugar,” said Lynn Robison DeRosa.

8) “Dagnabit!” said Charlene Holbook.

9) “Frickin’, flippin’, shoot,” said Lori A. Doyle.

10) “Shoot and Gooollly!! Use the Gomer Pyle voice! LOL,” said Jan Gloster.

11) “Geez Louise,” said Nancye Hernsmith.

12) “Sugartit!” said Martha Ballantyne.

13) “Jeez oh man,” said Penny Dennis Rone.

14) “Shoot, fudge, goodness to Betsy, holy cow, Jiminy Cricket, gosh darnit, son of a gun, golly gee,” said Joe Miano.

“Heavens to guns!”

“Sugartit willikers!”

Think of your own favorite old timey stand-ins and smash ’em together. What are your favorite vintage modern no-no words?